Radiation damage in ion-irradiated yttria-stabilized cubic zirconia single crystals

¹ Centre de Spectrométrie Nucléaire et de Spectrométrie de Masse, Bât. 108, 91405 Orsay, France
² Cellule CNRS Leptons, DGA-DCE-CTA-LOT, 16 bis Av. Prieur de la Côte d'Or, 94114 Arcueil, France
³ Institute of Electronic Materials Technology, 01-919 Warsaw, Poland, and Andrzej Soltan Institute for Nuclear Studies, 05-400 Swierk/Otwock, Poland
⁴ CEA-Cadarache, DEN/DEC/SESC, 13108 Saint Paul-lez-Durance, France
⁵ Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering, 76900 Bucharest, Romania

Corresponding author: thome@csnsm.in2p3.fr

Received: 19 November 2002
Revised: 11 April 2003
Accepted: 2 June 2003
Published online: 3 September 2003

Abstract

This paper presents a study of the damage production in yttria-stabilized cubic zirconia single crystals irradiated with medium-energy (from 30 to 450 keV) heavy ions (from He to Cs). The disorder created in the two sublattices (Zr⁴⁺ and O²⁻) of the crystals and the lattice sites of heavy ions were determined as a function of the irradiation fluence by in situ Rutherford backscattering and channeling experiments using a 3 MeV ⁴He ion beam. Damage is created at a depth close to the ion projected range at low fluences and growths towards greater depths with increasing fluences once the saturation has been reached. The kinetics of the damage accumulation process reveals three stages, which (excepted for He) essentially depend on the number of displacements per atom (dpa) induced by irradiating ions (ballistic contribution). Channeling results show that the lattice location of the heaviest atoms (Xe, Cs and I) varies with the nature of implanted species (chemical contribution). The experimental data can be represented in a diagram involving both the number of dpa and the implanted ion concentration, which could be used to predict the damage evolution in other ion-irradiated nuclear ceramics.